Carmilla

But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths. Before there was Dracula, there was Carmilla. A short 1872 novel by Irish author Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla is an important contribution to classic horror, both by being an early work of vampire fiction, and for featuring a lesbian vampire at that! It's an extremely fast read, so I guess it's fitting that it has a disappointingly abrupt ending to match that brisk pace. I appreciate its audacity, and I recommend it more for its historical significance than my enjoyment from reading it.

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Finished Hell's Princess. I have thoughts.

Now reading the heartwarming tale of Belle Gunness. A festive atmosphere reigned at the farm. Newspaper commentators compared the scene to a “county fair,” a “playground,” and a “Sunday amusement park.” Vendors, calling their wares through megaphones, peddled peanuts, popcorn, and lemonade. Beside one of the graves, where the moldering remains of two of Belle’s victims had been unearthed, a portly fellow manned a makeshift refreshment stand, dispensing “pink ice cream and cake.” A crew of young men, hired for the occasion by a local printer, roamed the grounds, hawking picture postcards at ten cents apiece or three for a quarter. The photos of Andrew Helgelien’s dismembered body sold out within minutes, though the ones showing the skulls of Belle’s other victims were also popular.